Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Friday, December 22, 2006

Last Christmas, Johnny Trouble got an AC/DC t-shirt. Back in Black. He wore it Christmas day. Soon after, he decided it was too black. So, for all of 2006 it has hung tied to his balcony rail, weathering away in the elements. It stayed there all through the dust of the dry season, and all through the rainy season. Birds have crapped on it. Spiders have made their homes in it. Lightning struck it more than once, maybe even thunder. But it's getting ridiculous. Johnny, one year is up, and it's Christmas again.

IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS YOU'LL WASH THE BACK IN BLACK T-SHIRT AND WEAR IT.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

If you are bored, and seek to understand the world, spend 3 minutes on the ALCOR site They deal in cryonics, and run out of of Arizona. It's enlightening. I learned that death isn't an event, but a process. I learned that a frozen brain is called a 'neuropatient'. I learned that the consenting dead are referred to as 'Alcor members'. And I learned that the people at Alcor are as creepy as hell.

Check out the pic of Dr. Mike Perry, making some very important notes next to the bottle of frozen nitrogen. Note the ease at which he interacts with his technology (including the floppy disk drive). Anyway, Perry's main job is to maintain the deep cold phase of patient care. That's the bit where after you die, they cut out your brain and freeze it. This is where Perry really shines. No-one cares for removed dead brains like Perry. He is also a leader in the Venturism movement, which I just learned is a religion based on the ellimination of death. He authored the feelgood classics Toward Self-Optimization of Machine Intelligence and Forever for All: Moral Philsophy, Cryonics and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality.

And after all this, Time Magazine still doesn't give him Person of the Year? For the love of God...

Friday, December 01, 2006

Here at EMC, we get sent all kinds of stuff for review.Every day at the office, we're met by a mountain of digital cameras, skin creams, marital aids and extreme sports equipment. These days though, what with the EMC Foundation to run, and the endless appearances at all those goddamn blog ceremonies, we don't get much time to check out what the kids are into. But, given that christmas is only 395 days away, we thought we'd take time out. After all, christmas is a time of giving.So, we give you this, a review of Laden vs USA, the game.

Our friends at Phnom Penh's Orrussey Market sent us our Laden vs USA handheld arcade game in a neat, polyethylene shrink pack. It's pretty much the standard toy-containing device we're all used to. However, the cardboard insert did contain eye-catching, lifelike photographs of heroic firemen cradling burned babies, and what appeared to be a collapsed building. There was even a picture of a guy wearing a suit, but he was covered in a fine dust! Anyway, at first glance, it was all very realistic.Oh, and still attached was the 10000 riel price tag (that's US$2.5).

Open it up, and it instantly feels good in your hand. Not too heavy, if you know what I mean. A modern, grey and dark grey LCD (thats liquid crystal display) is the heart of the experience, and if you look at the picture, you'll see that the LCD features the lifelike rendering of a plane hitting a tall building. To play, you aim a little space invader-style rocket launcher at aeroplanes which continue to launch themselves into the tall buildings. You keep knocking ' em down, and rackin' up the points. NOW YOU"RE PLAYING WITH POWER! When enough planes hit the tall building, you're out. It ain't easy, I'll say that much.I scored about 15 on my first round. One word: really fucking fun. It's a simple enough idea, unlike that game where you have to control Mickey Mouse as he collects eggs from FOUR different chicken cages in one basket. I never did understand why my aunty once brought us that rather than Donkey Kong II.

Anyway, while the controls were a little flimsy, they seemed to stand up to my rigorous 30 second test. The sound may be conveniently switched off, should you wish to go a round whilst sitting at the UN general assembly, or other such important event. However, I'd suggest you leave it on, because the sound of the plane hitting the tower is total digital magic! It sounds a bit like a distorted version of KKKKKRRRRRRSSSSHSHHHHHKKKK! Other features include a reset button, which presumably allows you to restore world order momentarily.

My only complaints are these.Firstly, I fucking hate yellow, and the game's main buttons are yellow.Secondly, while the controls and presentation are quite realistic, the concept itself just seems a little dumb... a little underdeveloped, or thin, if you will. I mean, why would you need to aim a space-invader style rocket launcher in the sky to stop passenger liners from hitting a building? It just seems implausible to me that anyone would believe in anything so strongly as to go to the effort of learning how to fly a plane, and then hijacking a plane loaded with innocents, and then crashing said plane into a tall building. For what?I mean, even if there was something to be gained from such a stupid stunt, you'd be too dead to enjoy it anyway, right? As I said, only small complaints.Overall, good, clean fun and bound to be a sleeper stocking stuffer hit this religious holiday.8.5/10.

About a billion years ago, all of the continents came together forming a super continent called Pangea. An ice age caused the whole land mass to ice over, destroying all terrestrial life. After the ice melted, terrestrial life re-evolved from sea creatures. It is not known why the earth's core is hot, but changing thickness of the crust indicates a constant cooling, which indicates that the heat was created at the beginning of the earth's formation. And that, kids, is why we have Christmas.